Keep it Simple: Improve Your Website and Your Brand

It starts out simple. You have a small business and you need
a website. You write some of the pages or have
someone do it for you but then…ahh! It becomes a huge mess. Maybe you
start to feel like you need to improve your website because it isn’t really
saying what you want it to say.

Do you find yourself explaining to people, in person,
something different than what they might find on your site? If this is the
case, or if you are just continually frustrated that your site isn’t saying
what you want, you may need to try the beauty of SIMPLICITY.

“More” Confuses

Of course, there’s a lot you want people to know about your small
business. It’s only natural! But, time and time again the issue I encounter the
most with small businesses is that they say TOO much, all at once.
Your potential customers and clients visit your site only to leave confused and,
even worse, frustrated. Rather than influencing a potential new contact, you’ve
now created a NEGATIVE contact.

Maybe your navigation panel has seven or eight headers, or
maybe your headers have countless sub-menus. Or, they land on your page and
have to scroll for minutes before reaching the bottom, sorting through long
paragraphs and explanations. Then what happens? They bounce. If you’ve ever
heard about high “bounce
rate,” that’s what this means. They bounce in and then bounce right off
your site.

Keep it Clear

One of the frequent services Steady Glow Digital provides to improve your
website is paring down and CLARIFYING CONTENT. Sometimes it can be hard to do
this when you’re so close to a business (it can even be a challenge to do it
for myself!) but ultimately, it’s worth it. Content on your website should be
DIRECT and be capable of answering questions a visitor might have. Some
possible questions might be:

What does this business do?

How is this business different than another,
similar one?

Where is this business located?

How do I contact this business?

How much does this business’ services cost?

Take a peek at your site right now. Does it answer any of
these, or similar questions?

Now What Do They Do?

Another thing to remember is…why do you have a website in
the first place? Is it to sell a product? Generate contacts? Sign people up for
your emails? Have them call you? Keep that singular goal or goals in mind in
your content and design. That thing you want them to do? Make it painfully
obvious and SIMPLE. Repeat it, on every page, in the header and in the footer.
If you’re goal is to have them sign up for your emails, create a pop up
sign-up, put a link to sign up in your header and even mention it within your
content, in multiple places. It may feel a little redundant but what it does it
make it EASY for people to do that thing, regardless of where they are on your
site. Maybe your goal will change over time and with that, you can adapt your
content and design. A website is a LIVE thing. Making your calls to action
(CTAs) clear and available will help improve your website’s retention rate (making
that pesky bounce rate go down).

Improve Your Website With This Simple Exercise

Empty your head for a minute. Now, in thirty seconds,
explain what your business does. Did you find yourself resorting to “corporate
speak” or using a different tone of voice? Try again, and again and again. It
might even help to get frustrated. Sometimes, in our frustration, we blurt out
the simplest and clearest explanations. Here’s another option: try explaining
what you do to a child. Children are the best buffers of our BS. If you have a
child, you know how much you have to distill complex concepts into easy-to-understand
explanations. This works really well in business and websites, too.

Sometimes, Simplicity is Hard

If the prospect of combing through your website’s content
and layout is too daunting, don’t worry, that’s actually what we love. We
helped numerous businesses take scattered content, too much content and underperforming
websites to create a smooth-running, more engaged and better performing
machine! Your first step is to contact us
today!

Archives

About our host

This site is hosted by Green Geeks, an environmentally-responsible, reliable, fast hosting company. For every amperage they pull from the grid, they invest 3 times that in the form of renewable energy via Bonneville Environmental Foundation.

AriSEIA Member

Steady Glow Digital is a member of AriSEIA, the Arizona Solar Energy Industries Association.

AriSEIA’s mission is to develop and support policies which create opportunities to advance Arizona’s economy through solar energy. AriSEIA advocates for sustainable job creation in deployment of solar and complementary technologies, and collaborates with all stakeholders to encourage utilization of Arizona’s greatest natural resource: the sun.